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REMARKS 



OF 



HON. LEWIS CASS, OF MICHIGAN, 



MADE IN 



THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 10, 185G, 



ON THE 



STATE OF OUR RELATIONS WITH ENGLAND, AND THE POLICY 
OF INCREASING OUR MILITARY AND NAVAL MEANS. 




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WASHINGTON;: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE 

1856. 




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OUR NATIONAL ARMAMENTS. 



The bill appropriating three millions of dol- 
lars for the manufacturing and repair of small- 
arms, equipping fortifications, and providing 
ammunition, being under consideration in the 
Senate, 

Mr. CASS said: Mr. President, I do not rise to 
discuss the details of this bill. I approve it, and 
shall support it. But my object in rising is to 
enter a kind of protest against the sentiments I 
have heard advanced here to-day, that it is dan- 
gerous to increase our military means because 
England might take offense at such a measure, 
and that it might augment the irritation already 
prevailing in that country. I do not believe in 
such a policy of forbearance, as I have already 
shown by my action in the Senate. 

When the information first reached us some 
time since that a peace would soon probably term- 
inate the war prevailing in Europe, I submitted 
a resolution instructing the Committee on Naval 
Affairs to inquire into the expediency of increasing 
the Navy of the United States. I thought this 
was a precautionary measure, dictated as well by 
prudence as by patriotism. Before it was in my 
power to move the adoption of the resolution, T 
was prevented by an accident from attending the 
Senate, and when I was able to resume my seat I 
was told by the chairman of the Naval Committee, 
that the subject of the augmentation of our mari- 
time force had engaged their attention, and that 
he was about to report a bill for that purpose. 
This was done within a day or two; and under 
these circumstances I thought it inexpedient to 
press my proposition. The bill was passed; and 
though I think the increase it provides falls short 
of what the situation of the country demands, 



yet I voted for it with pleasure, as an important 
step in the right direction. 

Sir, the external circumstances affecting us have 
materially changed since the annual estimates 
were laid before Congress. We had, indeed, at 
that time differences pending with England, but 
these differences have since assumed a much more 
serious character there and here; and as their 
gravity has increased, and with it the public ex- 
citement, England finds herself upon the point of 
being relieved from a terrible conflict, which de- 
manded all her energies and resources, and opera- 
ted as a security for her moderation towards other 
Powers, inducing her to yield to the suggestions 
of prudence what she might refuse to the dictates 
of justice. If she is freed from the present strug- 
gle she will come out of it with the possession of 
a great unemployed force, and with the loss of 
much of her military prestige, added to disap- 
pointed hopes and wounded national vanity aris- 
ing out of the events of a war which have been 
more favorable to the renown of her ancient 
enemy and recent friend, and always rival, than 
to her own. 

It might well be, sir, that, in this condition of 
comparative humiliation, she might have no ob- 
jections to seeking in the West that glory which 
she had anticipated, but had failed to find, in the 
East; or, at any rate, these considerations might 
operate to render her more tenacious of the posi- 
tions she had assumed, and less disposed to meet 
us in a spirit of moderation. And certainly, sir, 
no man can fail to observe that, as the probability 
of peace has grown sJ^fcger, the bluster in Eng- 
land — I borrow the -»mfrom Lord John Rus- 
sell, who applied itBaMEr. Polk — has become 



4 



more violent, till the latter is almost a measure- 
ment of the former. 

It is not long since this feeling was indicated by 
a distinguished review, the North Briton, which 
observed by way of warning, or of threatening, 
or probably both, that the same fleet which passes 
the summer in the Black Sea may pass the winter 
in the Gulf of Mexico. It was at no time im- 
proper to look at our means of attack and defense, 
but it is our especial duty to do so as the affairs 
of the country become more critical. There is 
one peculiarity in our condition, which our whole 
history has disclosed, and that is an insuperable 
objection in the minds of the American people to 
the permanent support of a great military estab- 
lishment. What Mr. Madison called the armor 
and attitude of war, will never be assumed imtil 
war is upon us. Of course, our arrangements to 
meet it are hastily made, but they are made with 
a spirit and energy which no other country has 
ever displayed, and which enable us to face events 
as they are forced upon us. And I observe that 
even the London Times is not blind to this nation- 
al characteristic, its vision being obviously ren- 
dered clearer by the occurrences in the Crimea. 
Speaking of war it says: 

" Our merchants would find a foe as well as a rival in 
every part of the world. We are aware that we should 
have to deal with an enemy inheriting all our enterprise 
and daring, but not burdened, as we are, by a national debt 
and a host of incapables, or trammeled by a court, an aris- 
tocracy, and the routine of which the report from the Crimea 
discloses such sadly fantastic examples. We do not for- 
get how quickly the United States raised the armies that 
reduced Mexico and wrested from her whole provinces. 
We know that twenty-five millions of men of European 
and chiefly British blood arc not to be despised. We could 
hardly expect to suffer much less damage than we could 
inflict." 

The fact is, we have in the United States no 
soldiers in the European acceptation of the term; 
no class set apart for the business of fighting. 
Our embodied military force is too small to form 
an exception to this remark; but the whole na- 
ion is a nation of soldiers when the safety of the 
country demands their services. Habituated 
to fire-arms, and fitted by habit for almost any 
employment, each feels his own interest involved 
in the general welfare, and all are ready to repair 
from their homes to the battle-field, prepared to 
do their duty, and animated by a spirit of patriot- 
ism which leaves to the Government the task of 
determining whose voluntary offers shall be de- 
clined, not whose shall be accepted. The difficulty 
is in saying who shall J^kr, not who shall go. 
The world has never sJKicli displays of mili- 



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tary ardor and patriotism as are furnished by the 
history of this country in periods of difficulty and 
danger. 

This very state of things, however, renders it 
but the more proper to regard with careful atten- 
tion the course and conduct of other nations, the 
pretensions they advance, and the results which 
their measures appear to foreshadow. Obvious 
as this duty is, it is scarcely ever fulfilled, but 
the cry immediately goes forth, and often from 
this place, that war is desired. It is an idle 
charge, sir, scarcely deserving serious refutation. 
To adopt the side of our country in her dispute 
with another Power is not to desire war. It is 
to desire that humiliating concessions should not 
be made, but that, if war is forced upon us, we 
should be ready to meet its responsibilities. Its 
true aim is to avert war, not to invite it; to 
avert it by showing that we are aware of our po- 
sition, and are not to be driven from it by arro- 
gance and injustice. My friend from Tennessee, 
[Mr. Bell,] as true a patriot as we have amongst 
us, in his remarks the other day, fell into this 
error. He renewed the oft-repeated story of my 
bellicose disposition towards England, (this is his 
word, not mine,) founding the charge upon noth- 
ing better than the freedom with which I examine 
her pretensions, and the earnest desire I express, 
as I am convinced my country is right, that she 
will yield nothing to the unjust demands made 
upon her. 

The Senator seemed to think that this course 
of discussion here would be considered by Eng- 
land as a determination to cut Ike Gordian knot 
with the sviord. So be it, sir, if she has the arro- 
gance to view the debates here as trenching upon 
her rights and honor — as a menace, to adopt a 
phrase which the Senator used upon that occa- 
sion. If the statesmen, or people of England, in 
that spirit of assumption so often displayed in 
her history, connect the free discussion of our 
cause with the determination to appeal from the 
arbitrament of reason to that of force, let them 
learn to correct their error in the school of ex- 
perience. I repeat what 1 before said, the people 
of this country desire no war with England. 
Every man knows the calamities which such a 
rupture would bring with it; and certainly, at 
my time of life, and with the experience I hava 
had, I am among the last to look with satisfac- 
tion upon such a prospect. But we are not to 
lay our hands upon our mouths and our mouths 
in the dust, lest a foreign Power should see in 



the examination of their conduct a foregone de- 
termination to engage in hostilities. I agree, at 
least, with one sentiment recently advanced by- 
Lord Palmerston, that "what a Government has- 
to consider is the justice of its cause, and what 
is befitting the honor and dignity of the country. " 
That, I trust, will ever be our rule of action; and 
if it leads to peace, so much the better, but if to 
war, we should meet it as we may. 

We find no example, either formerly or re- 
cently, in English history, of this careful atten- 
tion to the feelings of another nation, and of this 
studied purpose to avoid giving offense by avoid- 
ing the discussion of national differences. Why, 
sir, the people and the press of England, are 
equally violent in their denunciations of our coun- 
try and her position. I am not going to quote 
the terms of abuse so lavishly employed. They 
show how improvement follows practice; for, in 
the extensive experience we have heretofore had 
on the receipt of similar national favors, we have 
received none more significant than these. The 
articles from the leading journals which prove 
this state of feeling have been everywhere repub- 
lished, and read in our country, and precious 
exhibitions they are of good sense and good feeling. 
In one point of view only are they worthy 'of 
attention, except as indications of national char- 
acter, and that is, because they are equally indi- 
cations of that deep-rooted sentiment of aversion 
which animates the public mind in that country 
towards the United States. 

I know it has been apologetically said here, for 
apologies are never found wholly wanting, that 
these publications speak only the feelings of the 
editors, and not those of the great body of the 
people. Sir, there is no foundation for this dis- 
tinction between writers and readers. The great 
leading papers of London are unerring indications 
of popular sentiment through the island, whether 
leading or led by it, especially when they are 
united, without reference to party distinctions, 
in questions interesting to the English people; 
and this union is now almost without exception, 
and is of itself one of the most pregnant signs 
of the times. Let no one, therefore, object to 
their examination here in this branch of the 
National Legislature. They are legitimate sub- 
jects, important, indeed, of investigation in the 
consideration of our affairs with England, as they 
furnish the means of investigating the condition 
of the public mind, and how far it is prepared to 
approve extreme measures. He who believes 



that all the London journals, during a session of 
Parliament, when the statesmen and politicians 
of the kingdom are assembled there, strongly 
advocate views of great questions of public policy 
unacceptable to the English people, knows little 
of the causes which operate upon public opinion 
in that country. Straws they may be in them- 
selves so far as respects our course or our cause, 
but they show the force and direction of the 
wind. 

Some of the most violent of these papers are 
the supporters and under the control of members 
of the Cabinet, and appreciate their own position 
too well to give utterance to a single thought in 
relation to grave public matters unacceptable to 
their leaders. When, therefore, I read well-turned 
periods of conciliation uttered by Lord Pal- 
merston in the House of Peers, while he holds 
on with characteristic tenacity to the last letter 
of his construction of the Clayton -Bui wer treaty, 
by which he maintains that the engagement on 
the part of England, that she will not occupy any 
part of Central America except the part provided 
for, does not mean what it says, but it means 
that she will not occupy any more of it than she 
claimed at the date of the treaty, or, in other 
words, that she will not increase her occupation — 
when I read this, and then turn to the miserable 
diatribe, preeminent for its arrogant abuse against 
the United States, which has recently appeared 
in his journal, the Morning Post, I am free to 
confess that the coarse effusion of the paper more 
than neutralizes the professions of the Peer, and, 
in my opinion, speaks more truly his sentiments. 

In that precious exhibition of British modera- 
tion the world is told that we have no government, 
and are in pretty much the condition of the Gauls 
and Germans in the days of Julius Caesar; and 
that we are as much without the pale of European 
principles as China or Japan, or the African com- 
munities, especially the Kaffir chiefs, to whom 
we are likened; and that we must be dealt with 
differently from civilized nations. It proposes 
that the European Powers should come to a com- 
mon understanding how to deal with us; and that 
France and England should place themselves at 
the head of this new crusade of civilization; that 
they should watch our coasts and search our ves- 
sels, and take men out at their pleasure, upon 
pretexts to be judged by themselves; and if neces- 
sary, this scheme should be carried out to the last 
extremity. And thi^is the serious proposition 
spapcr, known to be at- 



of a great London 



lljVIS 

I 



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tached to, and supporting the interest of, Lord 
Palmerston. The United States are to be tabooed, 
to be declared a political leper, and to be excluded 
from the company of the sovereign Powers of the 
world; and their citizens, like the proscribed caste 
of old, to cry "Unclean, unclean!" wherever 
they go. 

I have no objection to the indulgence of that 
boasting propensity which makes part of the 
English character; indeed, this self-complacent 
exhibition rather amuses me. We have a com- 
plete display of it at this moment; and are timely 
warned that, on the firing of the first hostile gun, 
our commerce is to be swept from the ocean, our 
sea-board devastated, our cities plundered and 
destroyed, and, I suppose, our national independ- 
ence annihilated. " Let not him boast that put- 
teth on his armor," says the volume of inspira- 
tion, no less than the volume of human expe- 
rience, "but him who putteth it off." This 
fanfaronade is an old story. A certain General, 
named Burgoyne, said, in the British House of 
Commons, at the commencement of our revolu- 
tionary war, that he could march through the 
Colonies at the head of a single regiment of dra- 
goons. And I believe that was the general senti- 
ment in England; it was truly an English one. 
In a few short months the self-sufficient orator 
exchanged St. Stephen's chapel for the forests of 
America, and placing himself at the head of a 
well-appointed army of seven or eight thousand 
men, he marched into our country a few short 
miles, and there fulfilled his promise by an un- 
conditional surrender of his army. 

When we entered upon our last war with Eng- 
land, our flag was contemptuously designated as 
striped bunting, and our armed ships as fir-built 
frigates; but when we came out of it, that striped 
bunting had so often floated over St. George's 
cross, and those fir-built frigates had so often 
redeemed their character in desperate conflicts 
and by capturing their opponents, that even na- 
tional vanity, in its own defense, was compelled 
to admit the prowess of our gallant navy. And 
this exaltation of their own power extends beyond 
us to the other nations of the world; for but a 
few short months have passed away since Peters- 
burgh and Moscow were to fall, and the Czar to be 
driven back to the primitive inheritance of the 
Russian ruler in Asia. But Moscow, and Peters- 
burgh, and Russia, have survived the power and 
the threats of England. A 

It is wonderful, sir, to ^Berve what ignorance 



of the true condition of our institutions pervades 
the English journals, and, I may add, the English 
community. Among the crude speculations 
which have recently come to us from the other 
side of the Atlantic, are some regarding the pres- 
ent posture of our affairs with England. It is 
supposed we have no Government, and that Con- 
gress and the President and the country are 
guided by the idlest motives that ever entered into 
the human imagination. I shall not stop to re- 
peat them, contenting myself with observing that 
the failure of the House of Representatives to 
elect a Speaker seems to have been considered the 
knell of the Government. It is emphatically 
termed the dead lock — an insuperable bar to our 
progress. Now, sir, to us in this country it is 
really laughable to suppose that such an incident 
as that could exert the slightest influence upon 
the destinies of our institutions. They are con- 
trolled by far higher causes — by the will of the 
American people; and if this dead lock, as it is 
called, had even continued during the whole term 
of the present Congress, the people would have 
stood between their institutions and danger, and 
would have taken efficient measures to insure 
the operations of their Government. In fact, sir, 
such is the moral power of our institutions, that 
the political machine would for a while almost go 
on by its own momentum. From the landing at 
Jamestown and at Plymouth, our history is a 
school teaching how free and equal Governments 
may be organized and maintained by the sponta- 
neous action of the people, in the face of what- 
ever obstacles may occasionally present them- 
selves. 

While I was in Paris, an incident happened, 
which furnishes another example of this Euro- 
pean ignorance. It is worth referring to in this 
connection as a characteristic trait. When the 
news reached there that there had been some dis- 
turbances in Harrisburg, which had caused the 
members of the Legislature to quit their hall of 
assemblage, there was a good deal of excitement, 
and it was considered, if not an actual revolu- 
tion, as the precursor of one. The state of things 
in this country was judged by the state of things 
in France, and the members of the Chamber of 
Deputies could not be driven by violence from 
their seats without an explosion which would 
shake the kingdom. I was asked by a distin- 
guished French functionary — and with a manner 
which seemed to say, your country is in a bad 
way — what would be the probable result of this 



interruption of the public authority ? — for Harris- 
burg or Washington was, I suppose, to them the 
same thing. I answered, that the next packet 
would probably bring information that some jus- 
tice of the peace had issued his warrant, and that 
the offenders had been apprehended and punished , 
and that with this exercise of authority the whole 
matter would pass away. And such, in fact, was 
the result. With one exception, this Govern- 
ment, in my opinion, sir, is the strongest Gov- 
ernment on the face of the globe. There is no 
question but a sectional one which can destroy 
it. If we learn to be wise and avoid all irritating in- 
terference between the North and the South, leav- 
ing every portion of our country to manage its 
affairs for itself, upon its own responsibility, we 
may reasonably look forward to the indefinite ex- 
tension of the best and freest form of government 
ever committed to man. If we do not, we may 
learn wisdom at as great a sacrifice as man ever 
paid for his error. 

After these experiments of the British press, to 
which I have referred, upon the taste and feelings 
of their own country, and upon the forbearance of 
this, it required a good deal of courage on the part 
of the London Times, while alluding to the views 
entertained, to say: "We believe that much of 
this recklessness [that is, an advocacy of our own 
cause] is owing to the habitually pacific tone in 
which the United States are constantly spoken 
of in England." 

I am at a loss to judge whether this remark is 
an assertion or a sarcasm. If the former, it is as 
little creditable to the wisdom as to the veracity 
of that reckless paper. If the latter, it is one 
redeeming concession, the more valuable as it is 
almost without example. 

"The British people," says the same great 
controller of public opinion in England, "are 
very slow to go to war, but they are still slower 
to make peace." This national trait, thus dis- 
covered and disclosed, must push the credulity 
of John Bull about as far as he can bear, and that 
is saying a good deal; while the pretension excites 
the ridicule of the rest of the world. It has been 
often said, that the last person a man knows is 
himself; and that the remark is equally true of 
nations, needs no better illustration than this 
vaunt of the disposition of England to bear and 
forbear, evinced by the slowness and reluctance 
with which she suffers herself to be driven into 
hostilities. 

" The British people are very slow to go 



to war !" Why, sir, their history for centuries 
past has been little else than a history of their 
hostilities with the other Powers of the earth, 
civilized and uncivilized, for they have been very 
impartial in their aggressions, as neither Chris- 
tian nor Pagan has escaped their assaults. 

" Slow to go to war /" Why, for the last one 
hundred and fifty years they have hardly been 
at peace. Their armed ships have been prowling 
round the world, seeking territory they might de- 
vour. Ay, and finding it, too — from mighty con- 
tinents to the smallest islet that decks the ocean. 
If they had a temple of Janus, as had the Romans, 
their predecessors in wars and acquisitions, it 
would be as seldom shut as the memorable temple 
of old. 

" Sloiv to go to wart" This very journal — the 
Times — told its readers, but a short time ago, 
that the British Government went to war with 
Burmah for a disputed claim of <£990. 

" Slow to go to war /" but quick enough to go to 
war with China, in order to compel that country 
to permit the importation of opium — a drug de- 
structive of the health and morals of its people; 
and successful enough to make that privilege one 
of the conditions of peace, equal to £1 ,000,000 
sterling annually. I merely glance at this sub- 
ject, for I have no wish to follow its details. 
They are before the world, and will pass to the 
judgment of posterity. 

" Slow to go to war /" The last accounts from 
India tell us that the populous kingdom of Oude 
is about to follow the fate of the other native 
Governments of Hindostan, and to swell the 
mighty possessions of the Merchant Company 
which rules the immense territories upon the 
Indus and the Ganges. 

Mr. President, I desire to do no injustice to 
England. I appreciate all she has done for the 
intellectual advancement of mankind , for morality 
and civilization. But when she plays the Pharisee, 
and thanks God she is not like other nations, but 
shuns war and acquisitions, I, for one, feel little 
disposed to yield to the boasts or denunciations 
of her politicians or her journals. I have touched 
but a few facts in her career. They might be 
made to assume a formidable array. I refer to 
nothing which is not before the world and a 
legitimate topic of examination. He who be- 
lieves that the wrath of England may be depre- 
cated, or her designs " turned away" by studied 
silence in our country, or in this high place of 
our country, knows Little of the ceaseless opera- 



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tion of human rivalry and ambition. I am not 
one of those who believe that by shutting our 
eyes to danger we may avert it. That is best 
done by looking it in the face and preparing for 
it. JN"o nation ever escaped war by closing their 
eyes to its approach; and no nation ever brought 
it on by the exhibition of a resolute determination 
to resist aggression. 

We have already, sir, it appears to nie, treated 
this subject quite delicately — gingerly I may say — 
in the Senate. We had better look at things as 
they are, and call them by their right names. I 
sincerely trust we shall have no war. And when 
I consider the condition of the two countries, and 
the calamitous effect of a war upon both, I can 
hardly believe that English statesmen will push 
the differences to that extremity, though certainly 
there are ominous portents above the horizon 
which warns us that a storm may not be far off. 
But, at any rate, our safety will not be increased 
nor danger diminished by sitting still and closing 
our eyes, and our ears, and our mouths to every- 
thing around us, suffering events to take their 
own course, controlled by, not controlling, them. 
The latest accounts tell us that several regiments 
have been ordered from England to Canada. I 
doubt the truth of the report. Some years ago, 
and without reference to the Russian war, the 
British Government withdrew a large portion of 
its troops from that province. It did not need 
them there; it does not need them there now, 
either for the purpose of defense or of police. 
There is no more immediate fear of an opposition 
to British authority in Canada than there is in 
London. If these troops have been really or- 
dered there, the measure is an act of precaution 
or of menace, foreshadowing ulterior objects 
which depend on the determination of the British 
Government. 

I have seen no speeches in either House of the 
British Parliament, from any member of the Gov- 



ernment, which give rise to the least expectation 
that the views of the Ministry will be changed 
respecting the differences arising out of the Clay- 
ton-Bulwer treaty. I see, indeed, there are inti- 
' mations that they would be willing to submit 
j these differences to the arbitrament of some friend- 
j ly Power. For one, sir, I do not perceive how 
J such a proposition can be accepted. The question 
j in dispute is hardly a question of reference. It 
does not relate to disputed facts, nor to the fair 
.construction of the engagements of the parties. It 
is a mere question as to the meaning of a word — the 
word occupy, to bring the matter within its nar- 
rowest compass. I should as soon think of refer- 
ring to arbitration the meaning of the words free, 

SOVEREIGN 7 , AND INDEPENDENT STATES, ill the 

treaty of peace with Great Britain which recog- 
nizes our independence, as the words occupy and 
assume and exercise dominion, in the Clayton- 
Bulwer treaty. The former measure would be 
just as reasonable and honorable as the latter. In o 
arbitrator, whether understanding the English 
language or not, can tell us better than we now 
know what a treaty means when it says, that 
neither party shall occupy or possess any domin- 
ion in Central America, except in the single case 
provided for in the rider annexed to it. If any 
other occupation is retained, the treaty is violated. 
And we profess to know what occupation means, 
without resorting to the lexicographical knowl- 
edge or good offices of friend or foe. If England 
can hold possession without occupation, she may 
make out her case. If she cannot, ours is made 
out. The reference of such a question would be 
but a subterfuge unworthy of our position and 
our cause. 

Under these circumstances, and in the state of 
our foreign relations, I shall vote for the propo- 
sition of the Military Committee. I think we are 
called upon to do so by considerations which will 
be felt and approved by the American people. 



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